The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-01-07
PALATKA, FLA. JAN. Z. 1887.
A Business War.


There is often war in Europe, but the
enemy is over the border. and after the
battle there is peace. With us Il is al
ways war, and of this fact we are some
times proud. And it is warfare more
bitter, entailing more lasting evil than
any vet decided on the bloOdiest field of
them all. 1t is a war in which each SOL
dier has thrust upon him the wearing
anxiety and heavy responsibility which
in a wa- of the hands falls only upon a
few exceptionally endowed by training
or by nature to bear the burden: il is a
war in which each soldier stakes his all,
of love and life-the future of his chill
dren and the comfort of his wife as well
as his honor as a man, often times his
mental soundness and the repOse Of his
conscience.
We sre beginning to look upon a war
in which blood is spilled as wicked an d
brutal. Yet we all plunge daily into a
war wherein is lost interests dearer than
blood or glory or even home and cOun-
try. In the war of business interests
there is disruption of homes, the ship
wreck of individual honor the downfall
of reason and the sitting OF nscience.
1t is carried home with the merchant,
the mailed hand rests on the clergy
mans desk, and the drill necessary in
active warfare practiced in the law
yer's office and on the back stairs of the
politician. There ia no peace any where,
and we are 40 rapidly familiarizing our
selves with tie necessities of our exist
ence that the business man who has
achieved success sinks into idiocy when
he quits work. He may "go into the
country" but not even the warnings of
his physician can keep him out of the vor-
tex where he has been taught that giddi-
ness is sanity and the sounds of desper.
ate strife mark only varying forms of
competition.
IL the American Is the highest type of
man reared by free institutions and pol
ished by contact with his equals, then is
the latest flower of our race very near
the first; the result of civilization ia
naught, and the product of all our
schools becomes only an enlightened
savage-for in the savage state each
mans hand must guard his head: is it
not true that in business each man is at
war with all his neighbors:
IL not the warm heart, the hand ready
to help, and the sympathetic soul, ipcum-
ORANGES ''in business Is not he best
fitted to achieve success whose brain is
active and ready. whose heart il only a
machine to pump blood through his
veins. and whose soul rises not above
the exaction of the pound Of flesh? Is
1t not true that the daily warfare waged
among us, brushes the beet and exalts
the worst specimens OF our race? Is il
not true that the successful financier>'
of the age is often of closer hand and
harder heart than the famous soldier?
Where is the morality which declaims
against the war Of the hand and sees not
the daily battle which turns the heart to
stone, dethrones reason, and wastes the
best feelings of our hearts instead Of the
blood from our veins? How is the war
for conquest worse than the war for
wealth? How is the shedding of blood
more cruel than the ruin of happiness,
the wreck of sanity and the loss Of pity
or sympathy for misfortune? How is
the man who Stays his neighbors credit
and steals his purse ''by competition"
worse than the savage who takes his scalp
or sinks Ratchet in his brain? Is the
man distinguished from the tiger by
waging war on his kind? Yet 10 our
race loved by a pitiful God. and has at
tributes which reach throughout space
TO lay hold on eternity.